On the Longing for War and War's Ending
by Abbykat
Summary: A series of oneshots and vignettes featuring Mwu la Fllaga and Murrue Ramius, and the ways in which their lives intertwine.
1. Best Laid Plans

**Title:** Best-Laid Plans  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 765  
**Timeline:** Somewhere between GS phase 41 and phase 48.  
**Summary:** They don't talk about after the war.

They don't talk about after the war.

Over the desk in the glorified closet that serves as the captain's office, they drink instant coffee and they talk about battles still to come. The plans they make together are about strategy and warfare, tactics constructed and picked apart bit by bit, examined from all angles, rearranged and reassembled and picked apart again.

Murrue rubs her fingers over her forehead briefly, then makes herself rest both her hands on the desktop. "The trouble is, everything depends on when one side or the other makes the next move."

"Well, it can't be helped." Mwu has turned his chair around backwards, his arms folded loosely over the back of it. "Our objective is to keep both sides from accomplishing their objectives."

"Which are to destroy each other." Her voice comes out in a sigh.

"Right," he says.

* * *

"I feel like we're waiting for the sword to drop," she admits quietly, looking down at her hands where they lie curled on the surface of the desk. "Just trying to think of everything that might possibly go wrong, in case it does."

"It's one of those unwritten rules of war," he says. "'If you plan for it, it won't happen.'"

_Do you suppose that works in reverse, too?_ Murrue wonders, but doesn't say it out loud.

* * *

"Usually I'd say you can't win a war only fighting defensively," he says. "But..."

She finishes the thought for him. "We're fighting to prevent more bloodshed."

He makes a little _hn_ sound in his throat. "This is a strange war we're fighting."

"All war is strange," she says.

* * *

He's watching her face very closely, though his voice remains light. "Second thoughts?"

"It's a little late for that, isn't it?" she says, and then sighs. "I just can't help but think... how can there be so many things in the world worth killing for?"

"Once the shooting starts," he tells her, "everybody kills for the same reason - because if you don't, the other side will kill you, and your comrades."

"And on the other side," she says, "they're killing you for the same reason."

He's quiet for a while.

"When you say it like that," he admits eventually, "it doesn't make much sense."

She doesn't feel like it, but she smiles anyway.

* * *

"Even if it doesn't make much sense," he points out in his matter-of-fact way, "that doesn't really change anything," and she knows that he's right.

"No," she agrees, quietly. "There can't be another Bloody Valentine, or another JOSH-A. It has to stop somewhere. I just... wish there were a better way."

He spreads his hands. "It's not a perfect world."

"I know."

* * *

"The best thing," he says, "would be if we could find a way to defang both sides."

She thinks about this for a moment, and shakes her head. "The best thing would be if we could bring both sides around to our way of thinking."

"You can't make a fanatic change his mind," he says, and shrugs. "But we can make it harder for them to do so much damage."

"Take away their toys and say 'play nice, children'?"

He laughs at that, and after a pause, in spite of herself, so does she.

* * *

"Murrue?" he says, and unexpectedly she finds her throat closing. She shuts her eyes against the sting of unwanted tears. When she opens them again a long silence later, he's watching her face, and frowning a little.

She tries a smile. It comes out lopsided. "I'm sorry. Where's the line between planning for contingencies and just worrying, again?"

"A few hours ago, probably." He pushes up from his chair, floating in the ship's almost-nonexistent gravity, and catches the corner of her desk to bring himself around it.

He holds out a hand to her and she takes it. "I'm just tired," she apologizes, letting him pull her up out of her seat; "we all are."

* * *

His hands settle against her sides, and she finds herself studying the loosened collar of his uniform from a few inches away. "I think that means it's time to stop thinking about it for a while," he says.

"Thinking is easier to start than it is to stop," she says, mildly. "Like war."

The laugh hitches gently in his throat, an amused little_ heh_. "We can't have that," he says. "If our captain loses her spirits, how can the rest of us do anything?"

It is the opposite of encouraging... but somehow endearing all the same. "Shut up," she says, and reaches to pull him down for a kiss.

* * *

**Author's Note:** A few things occurred to me recently. The first was that I keep having random ideas for shortfics and vignettes featuring these two characters, coherent enough to write out but not really substantial enough on their own to post as stand-alone oneshots. The second was that this fic is awfully small and slight for such a grand sweeping title, so if I was going to give up and start posting a series of oneshots and shortfics a la the likes of MapleRose and Seigi-san, I might as well use this one as a starting point.

So here we are. This fic is now a series. Film at eleven.


	2. Home Is Where

**Title:** Home Is Where  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 706  
**Timeline:** After the first half of GS phase 36  
**Summary:** Eventually, Mwu has to face up to the ramifications of his decision at Alaska, and the question becomes unavoidable: now what?

--

When the hue and cry had been more or less settled, the Archangel - for lack of any other possible destination - set sail for Orb. Mwu took enough time to see to the Skygrasper, and to give Kira a clap on the shoulder, but then he headed straight for his own quarters to get some rest - "before anything _else_ happens," he joked to Murdoch, who acknowledged it with a half-laugh and a grimace. _Everyone's ears are still ringing from the Cyclops._

But in the dim not-quite-silence of his cabin, surrounded by the familiar and barely-audible hum of the ship's engines, he found rest frustratingly slow in coming.

He lay on his back on his bunk with his hands folded behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, feeling drained and wide awake at the same time, and lacking, for the first time since he'd made the decision to go back to the Archangel, anything to buffer him from the sense of being set suddenly adrift.

_Now what?_

Stupid, pointless, unavoidable question. Now they would make for Orb, and rely again on Morgenroete's good graces for repairs and supplies, and most likely throw in their lot with Kira and Kira's impressive new mobile suit and whatever notions Kira had about trying to keep ZAFT and OMNI from killing each other in droves. Now he'd defend the Archangel and the Archangel's captain and crew for as long as they needed defending, which had after all been the whole point of throwing away a sterling career as an Earth Alliance pilot. And when the war was over - if the war was ever over--

--no good. "After the war" was an impenetrable fog. Mwu had never been much for trying to predict where his own life was headed; a soldier didn't have to, when there would always be orders and assignments and deployments. "Home" wasn't a place, it was the structure of the military itself... which had worked just fine for more than a decade, but now the military had betrayed him and he'd burned those bridges with a vengeance, left the ashes scattered over the dusty crater that was JOSH-A.

And he couldn't quite regret it... but he couldn't sleep, either.

He had the unreasonable urge to go see if the captain was still on duty or if maybe she, with her talent for navigating by intuition in spite of orders and regulations, had some clear sense of direction to offer. But even if she wasn't still on the bridge - and she was bound to still be on the bridge, taking up the slack in the absence of a proper first officer - now wasn't the time. He'd thrown away his own career willingly and with eyes wide open; Murrue had taken full responsibility for the entire ship's desertion onto her own shoulders. She had better things to worry about.

_Well,_ he thought, _Orb's military could probably use another pilot... assuming there's anything left of Orb when it's all over with._

A hesitant tapping at the door of his cabin derailed that cynical train of thought. Mwu pried himself up out of his bunk to answer it, and when he slid the door open he found himself both vaguely surprised and strangely disappointed to see one of the kids from Heliopolis - the nervous one - Buskirk - standing there with an armload of folded laundry.

"Something up?"

The kid held the stack of uniforms out to him. "The captain told me to bring these to you," he said. "She said you'd probably need them since you left your bag in Alaska."

Mwu blinked at him.

A beat passed before he grinned and took the stack of clothing out of Buskirk's hands. "Thanks, kid."

He only half heard the reply; when the kid retreated down the hallway, he slid his door closed again and stood contemplating the neatly folded uniforms for a while.

_Worrying about silly things isn't like me at all,_ he decided, and moved to put the things away.

This time when he stretched back out on his bunk, he drifted off easily, lulled by the faint whisper of the ocean against the ship's hull and a comfortable feeling he didn't quite have a name for.


	3. 0542

**Title:** 0542  
**Genre:** Fluff  
**Wordcount: **392  
**Timeline: **Between GS phase 41 and 48  
**Summary:** There are worse ways to start a morning.

--

Mornings came dark and early on a warship. Murrue had gotten used to waking without sunlight in the darkness of her quarters, but that didn't make it any easier to reach out of the comfortable tangle of covers and warmth and fumble blindly for her clock, to squint at the digital glow of its display. Particularly not with Mwu's solid warmth at her back and his arm curled snugly around her waist.

When she released the clock and let her head sink back down against the pillow, he stirred, nuzzling a little closer. "...time is it?" he wondered muzzily, low voice thick with sleep and mumbled into her hair.

"Oh-five-forty-two," she whispered back.

"Hn," he said, and didn't stir again.

She let a few seconds tick by in stillness, but it seemed that Mwu had no intentions of getting up. "I have to be on duty in less than an hour and a half."

No response. Just the steady rhythm of his breathing.

Murrue sighed, smiling in spite of herself, and began carefully easing her way free of his embrace and the sheets that covered them both. She'd just set her feet on the floor and was about to stand when a weight pulling at the back of her loose tank top stopped her short.

She peered back over her shoulder at Mwu, lying contentedly on his side with his face half buried in the pillow, looking for all the world as though he were fast asleep save for the hand he'd stretched out to catch hold of the hem of her shirt.

"Stand down, Commander," she said, a trace of laughter edging the exasperation in her voice.

He opened one blue eye and smiled boyishly up at her. "Sorry, Captain--" an unexpected tug at the back of her shirt brought her toppling backwards onto the bunk "--but that's an order I can't follow."

Pinned to the mattress with him leaning over her, tousled and grinning, she had to wonder, "Does this constitute mutiny?"

That gave him pause, but not for very long. He glanced briefly down between them, and met her eyes again with a mostly straight face. "I don't think either of us is in uniform."

There were, she reflected as she reached up to wind her arms around his neck, worse ways to start a morning.


	4. The View from the Ranks

**Title:** The View from the Ranks  
**Genre:** General/Humor  
**Wordcount:** 685  
**Timeline:** Between GS phase 41 and 43.  
**Summary:** There are no secrets in the microcosm of a spaceship - not so long as the crewmen can chat between duty shifts.

--

The Archangel is an unusual ship in unusual circumstances, but some things, no matter what, are simply universal. For example, the conversations that take place around the tables in the commissary while the crewmen take their meals.

"Where are we headed next?" one wonders, poking disinterestedly with a fork at the contents of her tray. The ship may be state of the art, but cafeteria food is still cafeteria food, and better not remarked on in too much detail.

"Resupply." The crewman next to her sits with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands.

She gives up, and puts her fork down on her tray, reaching for her cup of water instead. "Think we'll get some better food this time?"

Across the table, another crewman snorts in amusement. "Not likely. From what I've heard, we're headed to some old abandoned colony."

"What kind of resupply can we get at an abandoned colony?" his seatmate asks dubiously.

The second crewman considers that a moment, then shrugs. "Maybe it's only mostly abandoned."

"Got to be better than the Debris Belt, right?"

"Yeah," the first one has to acknowledge the point. "I guess they're kind of making all of this up as they--"

Her seatmate sits up straight and cuts her off with a nudge as Captain Ramius walks into the commissary, and the conversation drops away into silence as the four of them think uncomfortably over what they were saying and what their commanding officer might or might not have overheard.

Not that it matters much. The captain seems too preoccupied to pay too much attention to the four crewmen at their corner table. She only gives them a polite, distracted nod before heading across the room to retrieve an empty water bottle and begin filling it.

She is twisting the lid back on when Commander la Fllaga sticks his head in through the open doorway, glancing briefly around the commissary and then making his purposeful way across it, walking up behind her to reach past her with his other hand resting on her shoulder.

Without looking up, she puts the bottle she just filled into his hand. He takes it with a grin, and because the opportunity is right there he ducks his head to breathe in the scent of her hair before he steps back and goes strolling out like a man who owns the world.

As the crewmen watch, the captain fills another bottle, secures the lid in place, and strides briskly out of the commissary to whatever business is waiting for her.

Silence remains for a few moments after she has gone, as the four crewmen look at one another.

"When did _that_ start?" the first crewman eventually wonders aloud.

"Are you kidding?" laughs the second. "Chief Murdoch had a pool going on it by the time we got to Alaska."

The fourth one looks between them in confusion. "When did what start?"

"Commander la Fllaga and the captain," the third tells him.

"Huh?"

"Didn't you see their faces when he and Lieutenant Badgiruel were leaving at JOSH-A?" puts in the second.

"I was too far away," says the third, sounding a little regretful. "He sure didn't stay gone very long, though."

"But..." The first frowns. "Aren't there regulations about that?"

"There are regulations about deserting during combat too," the second points out; "would you rather have been vaporized? I don't think it really matters any more."

"Anyway," the third one agrees, "they've gotten us this far."

"What are you guys talking about?" the fourth crewman demands.

"I heard that Neumann and Tonomura and Chandra walked in on them on the bridge back in Orb," says the third, and makes a vague gesture in the air with one hand. "All over each other."

"Wow."

The second crewman grins. "Explains a lot, doesn't it?"

"Wait, you mean the captain and the commander are--"

"Come on," the third interrupts, gathering up his tray. "We're due back on duty."

The four of them dispose of their trays and start out of the commissary, the confused fourth crewman still protesting, "No, seriously--!"

--

**Author's Note:** I'm not quite as satisfied with this one. The attribution of the dialogue is pretty awkward, but I tried giving the crewmen names and didn't care for the result.

Thanks to MapleRose, irishdragon, and Seigi-san for your feedback. You are all much appreciated.


	5. TS MA2mod 00 Moebius Zero

**Title:** TS-MA2mod.00 Moebius Zero  
**Genre:** Gen/Fluff  
**Wordcount:** 227  
**Timeline:** Between GS phases 38 and 48.  
**Summary:** "I don't think that cockpit was built for two," she said.

--

They'd been talking about the capabilities of the mobile suits on both sides of the conflict, but somehow the subject had wandered around to the Strike, and the Zero, and the difference between piloting a mobile armor and a mobile suit. "Of course," Mwu said, "the Moebius is being phased out of front-line use by now. I guess having something like the Strike makes it pretty much obsolete."

Murrue considered him, and the vague regret in his words, thoughtfully. "Do you miss it?"

"Hmm, well. The Strike's a hell of a machine, you know." He grinned, in that way that always made his casual boasting too amiable to begrudge him. "But there's not as much satisfaction in mastering something somebody else has already done. I should take you flying in the Zero sometime, before she gets retired for good, so you can see what it's really like," he said, the closest either of them had ever come to talking about 'after the war.'

It stopped her, but even in the interval of silence that followed he didn't seem to notice the significance of what he'd said, or didn't care. Eventually she smiled and looked aside, eyes lidding. "I don't think that cockpit was built for two," she said in a deliberately mild tone.

He laughed delightedly, and the rhythm of their time together continued on undisturbed.

--

**Author's Note:** This was originally written as part of "Left and Leaving," before the flow of that piece underwent some serious revisions and it became clear that there was no longer a place for this little snippet. I liked it too much to just toss it out, so... here it is.

Thank you to everyone who's left me such encouraging reviews!


	6. Zero G

**Title:** Zero-G  
**Genre:** Humor  
**Wordcount:** 314  
**Timeline:** Between GS phases 41 and 45, ish.  
**Summary:** They didn't really cover this kind of situation in zero-gravity training.  
**Warning:** Not-so-subtly implied adult situations.

--

Mwu hadn't really intended to disrupt the mood by yelping like a startled schoolboy - but he hadn't exactly expected to bump against the ceiling, either. Painted metal against sweat-damp bare skin was _cold._

Murrue, craning her head around to eye their predicament - floating near the ceiling of her quarters, out of easy reach of decent leverage - turned an endearing shade of pink.

"I'm pretty sure this room is smaller from the floor," he observed wryly, and she gave up, resting her forehead against his shoulder in a mostly pointless effort at muffling her giggles.

After a vaguely dismayed look around him, Mwu had to laugh himself, just a little. "You know, they didn't really cover this kind of situation in zero-G training."

Murrue's voice quivered with repressed mirth as she looked back up at him, brown eyes bright. "I don't think they intended for it to come up."

The shirt from his uniform floated within reach; he stretched out a hand to catch it, and used it to pull her a little more firmly against him, snugging the fabric around her naked back. "When are they supposed to be turning the artificial gravity back on, anyway?" he wondered.

She looked briefly for the digital readout of her clock. "Not for a few more hours. We're trying to conserve fuel." She paused to study his face, arms still wrapped around his shoulders. "...Why? Are you having any brilliant ideas?"

Ignoring the dryness of her tone, he raised his brows, doing his best to look bland. "One."

Murrue, bless her, started to blush again, but she made a valiant effort at a dubious expression in spite of it. "Just one?"

"Just one," he told her solemnly, inclining his head closer to hers. "But it's a good one."

He caught her in a kiss before she could ask, and it was her turn to gasp.

--

**Author's Note:** I know, I know... but I can't be the only one who's had this thought about the Archangel's very wacky artificial gravity.


	7. Accommodations

**Title:** Accommodations  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 676  
**Timeline:** GSD phases 33 / 34  
**Summary:** What kind of ship's captain bothers herself with the wants of a prisoner?

--

"Is there anything that you need?" she asked him, and Neo left off fussing with the cord tethering his wrists to give her a hard, suspicious look, searching her face for smugness or mockery.

She looked patiently back at him with mild brown eyes, her brows raised slightly in inquiry. She meant it, he realized. What kind of ship's captain bothered herself with the wants of a prisoner?

The temptation to ask for something unreasonable, to find out just how accommodating she was willing to be, proved too great. Neo lifted his bound wrists to display the cord that restrained him, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smirk. "Getting this taken off would be good."

She smiled, with visible regret that baffled him. "I'm sorry," she said."I'm afraid I can't do that for you. You might be dangerous if I let you loose." There was something glimmering in the way she looked at him that made the mocking grin fall away from his face. "Is there something else that you need?"

Her subtle emphasis on the "else" made him think she knew exactly why he'd asked. He tried to decide if she was remarkably perceptive, or foolishly naive.

In any case, she was watching him for an answer again, and there was no sense in wasting an opportunity so generously handed to him. When he stopped to think it over seriously, though, Neo found that - aside from his freedom and a fully powered mobile suit - he couldn't think of much of anything he really needed that hadn't already been provided.

Except--

"My mask," he said.

Her brows drew together in confusion. "What?"

"My mask," he repeated impatiently, reaching up to describe its shape in the air with his hands only to have them pulled up short by the tether. "I was wearing it in the Windam."

"...Oh," she said quietly. "I - thought that was a helmet. I'm sorry, but we didn't bring it on board. We were more concerned with..." She hesitated. "...your injuries."

Of course. He'd begun to settle back, looking away from her with a disgusted sigh, before the full significance of her words occurred to him and he sat up straight again, ignoring the protests of abused muscle and bone.

_I thought that was a helmet,_ she'd said; _we didn't bring it on board._ The captain went down personally to retrieve a wounded enemy from the battlefield?

_What kind of a ship_ is _this?_

Her voice intruded gently onto his thoughts. "Why do you need a mask?"

The question brought his eyes sharply back to her, but still there was nothing but mild curiosity on her face - curiosity and that baffling trace of concern. _Are you blind?_ he wanted to snap at her; couldn't she see the scars?

_Why do you care?_ he wanted to demand.

But she just looked at him, her eyes meeting his without evasion, without any effort to avoid looking at the scar tissue. He was the one who looked away.

"At least it would keep the people here from calling me by someone else's name and rank," he grumbled.

"...I'll speak to them about that," she said after a moment of hesitation. "But I can't promise that everyone will listen. Mwu was - Commander la Fllaga was--" her voice dropped away to almost nothing "--very well thought of."

"They won't listen to you?" he wondered sardonically. "Aren't you the captain?"

She smiled again, but it only made her look sad. "It's not that kind of ship."

Unexpectedly, Neo felt faintly ashamed for saying anything.

"If you really want a mask," she said, sounding just slightly uncertain, "I'm sure that we can probably arrange for something...?"

"It's fine," he said curtly, looking down at his bound hands.

"In that case, please excuse me. I have to be getting back to work." She didn't wait for him to answer - not that he meant to - but simply inclined her head with almost formal politeness, and strode out of the infirmary a little too briskly.

Left alone again, Neo ducked his head so that he could rub his fingers over the ridges of scarring that cross his face.

_What's with this ship?_

--

**Author's Note: **We're given so little of their interaction in Destiny. This scene is one that just sort of wandered into mind by way of filling in some blank space.


	8. Certainty

**Title:** Certainty  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 728  
**Timeline: **Sometime not long after GSD phase 43.  
**Summary:** "What is that? 'What feels right.'"

--

It was well after hours... but somehow, inevitably, Murrue found him. She came wandering across the observation deck to stand beside him, looking up at his face as he stared out into the spangled darkness outside the Archangel's hull.

"Is something bothering you?"

How had she learned to read him that well, Neo wondered distantly. And why should she spend her energy on his worries, when she had a whole shipful of worries of her own?

He lifted his brows as he turned his face toward her, doing his best to make his voice light. "Not at all."

"Is that so?" Her mouth curved just a little in a tiny smile, warm and, he thought, faintly knowing.

It didn't seem fair that lately she seemed to know him better than he knew himself.

He let out a sigh, dropping the feigned nonchalance and watching her face, the affectionate way she looked up at him. "I wonder," he said, "if I told you the things I've done in this war... if you'd still look at me like that."

For a moment, her brow creased in surprise and incomprehension - but only for a moment before her expression smoothed again, and that little smile softened with something that might have been concern. "You could tell me," she suggested gently, "and find out."

He could tell her, he realized. He could tell her about the Phantom Pain - about Stellar and Auel and Sting - everything he'd done over the course of a war that he was beginning to wish he'd had no part of. He could tell her, and she'd listen.

And if he did, and the warmth of her brown eyes grew cold and accusatory?

"...No," he said. "Not yet. Maybe some other time... when all of this," a wave of his hand made 'this' encompass the full scope of the war, "is over."

Murrue looked away, the smile slipping from her face. "There may not be another time," she said, voice soft with... sorrow? Regret? But then she shook her head, and her smile was back. "It's all right. You shouldn't do anything that doesn't feel right to you."

Neo laughed, a short, sardonic chuff of exhaled breath. "What is that? 'What feels right.' I'm a soldier; I follow orders. But now..."

She laid a hand gently against his arm. "Any good soldier knows that 'I was just following orders' is no defense. We're all still accountable for our actions..." Her shoulders lifted, and she smiled up at him with that same affectionate warmth. "If only to ourselves."

She said it so simply. Maybe, for her, it really was that simple.

"How do you do it?"

She paused, looking momentarily thoughtful, then shrugged again. "I can't do anything else. It doesn't make me a very good soldier, I know..." he smile took on a note of cheerful self-deprecation, "but I can't help it. At least - even if things don't always happen the way that I hope for - at least this way I have fewer regrets."

Fewer regrets... what an alluring thought. He watched her for a long, silent interval, searching within himself for something like her quiet certainty.

"For now," he decided at last, "I'll follow your orders."

Her eyes widened. "That really wasn't the solution that I meant to suggest," she said, a trace of surprised almost-laughter quivering in her voice.

On an impulse, he slipped an arm around her and pulled her close. For the first moment, she was stiff with surprise, hands splaying against his shoulders like she would push him back - but then a breath went out of her and she leaned against him, winding her arms around him, just as warm and as comfortably familiar as she had been on the outer deck of the Archangel back in Orb.

_This is the same feeling,_ he thought. _This is right._

Strange. Had it been so long since something had really felt _right_ to him, before he'd come to in the Archangel's infirmary and first laid eyes on her captain?

_But... it's a really good feeling._

He leaned his head in toward hers, resting his cheek against her hair and breathing in the subtle fragrance of her, just as if she'd always belonged there.

He could follow her. She wouldn't lead him anywhere that he shouldn't go. That much, Neo was certain of.

_This is right._

--

**Author's Note:** A little more Destiny, getting back a little bit to the theme implied by the title... with thanks especially to my repeat reviewers, irishdragon, MapleRose, and Seigi-san.


	9. Maintenance

**Title:** Maintenance  
**Genre:** Fluff  
**Wordcount:** 423  
**Timeline: **Sometime after GS phase 40ish  
**Summary:** This is why militaries have rules about fraternization.

--

"Still working?"

Leaning in through the door of the captain's office, Mwu watched Murrue look up from a stack of papers and offer him a brief, rueful smile. "It seems like there's always one more thing," she said. "I'll call it a night after I finish going over this report. You might as well go on."

Ignoring her last comment, he stepped through the open doorway, nudging the controls to slide the door closed behind him before wandering across the office and around her desk. "What is that?" he asked, leaning to look at the report over her shoulder, and resting a hand absently against the curve where her shoulder met her neck.

"Another report from Orb intelligence," she told him. "Kisaka suggested I have a look at it."

"Oh." He spent a few seconds skimming the printout, fingers kneading at the tension beneath his hand. "Anything very bad?"

A breath left her in an audible sigh. "No worse than we knew already."

She didn't say 'which was bad enough,' but the weight in her voice and the strain in her posture said it for her. "Well," Mwu said lightly, settling his free hand on her other shoulder, "that's something, anyway."

"Mm," she said, focusing on the report again with an effort while Mwu occupied himself with massaging her shoulders.

Or tried to focus, anyway. "That's distracting," she observed after a short interval.

"It had better be," he replied cheerfully, "or I'm not doing it right."

With a sighing laugh, she went back to reading... but her head kept trying to drop. When a knot of tension released beneath his hands, the breath caught in her throat. "I can't concentrate while you're doing that."

"So take a break." He let a beat pass before adding helpfully, "I think you read that page twice."

Murrue made an exasperated noise, but she let the pages fall, slumping gradually forward to fold her arms on the desktop. "This is why militaries have rules about fraternization," she said.

Mwu took advantage of the extra space to begin working his way down her back. "Should I report to my commanding officer later for discipline?" he wondered. "That could be fun."

"_Mwu_," she protested, but she was laughing as she said it.

"See," he said, as she let her head come to rest on her folded arms, "isn't that better?" He worked his fingers into the taut muscles of her lower back until she moaned softly.

Because she couldn't see it, Mwu grinned to himself triumphantly. Victorious as always.


	10. Reasons

**Title:** Reasons  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 746  
**Timeline:** GS phase 30, after Murrue leaves the bridge.  
**Summary:** What do you do when the strategy that's served you for years just isn't working any more? To whom do you turn?

--

The last dregs of the adrenaline of combat gave out as the lift began its descent from the bridge. But rather than making directly for her own quarters, with Natarle's comments fresh in her mind, Murrue went in search of Commander la Fllaga.

She found him mostly by chance, striding along one of the ship's corridors with enough frustrated energy to make his steps ring out loudly in the vacant silence of the hallway. She had to break into a jog to catch up with him. "Commander!"

He stopped short - and so did she, taken aback by the uncharacteristic anger that tightened his face when he looked back.

"I wanted..." she began, and hesitated; he was already bringing his expression under control, but Raww le Klueze was suddenly no longer the primary concern on Murrue's mind. "What's wrong?"

Mwu dragged a hand back through his hair, breath hissing out through his teeth. "Sorry," he said. "The kid's just getting to me."

"Kira?"

He nodded. "Have you seen him?"

"Not since the battle," she said, frowning. "What happened?"

His shoulders hitched in a shrug. "He's beating himself up about what happened out there with the Blitz, that's all. I know it's not easy on him, but..." He turned his face away from her to scowl down the empty hallway. "We're at war. We're only doing what we have to do. If he goes out there reluctant to kill, he's going to be the one who gets shot down. He just - doesn't get that."

Murrue watched him, quietly studying his face until he turned a wry grin her way. "It's not like he's the first rookie who's ever had a crisis of conscience," he said, in something more like his usual light tones. "I don't know why it's getting to me now."

She spent a while longer watching him in silence, turning her thoughts over carefully in her mind. "This is what I think," she said at last, hesitantly. "It's a serious thing to kill another person. In times like these, as soldiers, we may not have a choice, but..."

Mwu stood very still, eyes fixed on her with an uncharacteristically guarded, serious look. "You sound like he's been getting to you, too."

"Maybe," she admitted, smiling a little in spite of herself. "I've been doing a lot of thinking lately."

"But that doesn't change the situation we're in now." He sounded like he was prompting her for something.

"No." This time she looked away, bowing her head to press her fingers briefly over her eyes. "Our options are so limited... if we can, I'd rather get away without any more combat. But if they catch up with us again, what else can we do?" The breath went out of her in a sigh. "I just wish I knew why they're pursuing us so determinedly."

"Does it matter?" Mwu asked, and she looked up to meet his eyes again, smiling ruefully.

"It might."

He said nothing to that. For the first time in a long while, she found herself vaguely uncomfortable with the silence - something about the way he looked at her, intently and with brow furrowed, making her wish she'd approached the whole subject differently, or not at all.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know it's hard on Kira. You must be exhausted too; you're working miracles out there, going up against those mobile suits with only a fighter jet. I--"

She stopped herself there, and looked away so that she wouldn't see him tip his head to the side and prompt her to continue.

"Hey," he said after an uncertain interval, with a lightness that seemed just slightly awkward. "It's nothing. We do what we have to, right?"

"Maybe," she said, "but..." A pause, and then she shook her head. "Never mind. You should get some rest, Commander. We don't know what's going to happen next."

He grimaced, with a note of wry humor.

"I can make it an order if it'll make you feel better," she offered.

That earned an abbreviated snort of almost-laughter. "No, it's fine. I'm going." But he paused before he's quite begun to turn away. "What was it you wanted, before?"

"What?" It took Murrue several seconds to recall. "--Oh. No, it's nothing that can't wait. Sleep well, Commander."

"Here's hoping." He flicked a sketchy salute. "You rest, too."

She smiled. "I plan to."

But she waited until he was gone from view before she started down the corridor herself.

--

**Author's Note:** Directly inspired by Mwu's conversation with Kira towards the beginning of phase 30 - particularly by how uncharacteristically hard Mwu comes down on Kira for being upset over killing Nichol. It's not consistent with his behavior towards Kira earlier in the series, and Kira's attitude really hasn't changed appreciably... the difference, therefore, has to be in how Mwu feels about the whole situation. He comes down so hard on Kira not because of anything Kira has or hasn't done, but because he feels more defensive at that point in the series than he did before. He's having to think about things he'd avoided thinking about.

And... I'm rambling. Anyhow! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, especially you wonderful folks who've read and come back for more. I appreciate it so much.


	11. Truce

**Title:** Truce  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 174  
**Timeline:** Towards the end of GSD, more or less.  
**Summary:** Neo and Andrew Waltfeld come to an understanding.

--

"What do you think you're doing?" said Neo in a low voice.

Waltfeld didn't bother to look his way until he'd finished easing Murrue back from the desktop she'd been slumped over, and loosened the collar of her uniform. Then he straightened, and shot Neo a brow-cocked, measuring look. "Something you probably should have been."

They faced one another down, and Waltfeld met Neo's frown with a self-assured expectance that dared him to make a fight of it.

Neo was the one to look away, down at Murrue, passed out soundly asleep in her chair with the colored glow of the charts on her computer screen traced faintly over the curve of her face, and he thought for a moment about which of the three of them would come out the greatest loser in that fight.

When he met Waltfeld's eye again, he thought maybe they understood one another.

"Heh." Waltfeld cracked a sardonic little grin. "You could come over here and give me a hand," he said, "since you have two."

--

Written for sakura no prey on the LJ pornandkittens comm, despite having neither porn nor kittens in it... thus the shortness. Although it's an awfully slight thing to update with after such a long hiatus, I'm rather pleased that it came out so neatly.


	12. 14 February, CE 71

**Title:** 14 February, CE 71  
**Genre:** General  
**Wordcount:** 516  
**Timeline:** GS phase 15.  
**Summary:** Valentine's Day will never be what it once was.

--

It occurs to her abruptly as they meet in her office to discuss their situation, and it stops her, just for a moment, but a moment is enough for him to notice.

"What is it?" Mwu asks her.

Murrue blinks herself out of the realization and offers him a half-hearted little smile. "It's nothing," she says, but he is still watching her face, and because she does not want to be less than honest with him she admits presently, "I just realized what day it is."

He pauses for a moment himself to count the days out in his head. "You're right," he says, "the fourteenth." A beat passes, and he lets out a short chuff of sardonic laughter. "Heh. I remember everyone saying this war would be long over by now."

"Nothing seems to be happening the way it's predicted," Murrue agrees. The 8th Fleet is fresh on her mind, and she closes her eyes when they start to sting.

He pats her shoulder lightly, a brief supportive gesture. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," she says, and summons that regretful little smile back onto her face when she looks up at him. "It's not the time for it," she admits, "but I was just thinking... what a shame it is that, from now on, Valentine's Day will be a day to grieve the dead, instead of a day for love."

It really isn't the time, she knows; Mwu looks at her helplessly, clearly unsure of what to say to her, and Murrue can feel her face growing warm with embarrassment. She's not certain why she mentioned it at all.

"Anyway," she says, saving him from having to answer, "we have a lot of work to do."

"Yeah." He lifts his head to look over at the map she's called up on the wall screen, but then he makes a disgruntled noise in his throat. "Look, I don't know about you, but I'm going to need some caffeine for this. Should I go and get us both some coffee before we get started?"

He looks entirely alert to her - he usually does - but she just inclines her head gratefully. "Please."

His hand is on her shoulder again, a quick squeeze. "Take it easy for a minute. I'll be right back."

She shouldn't think of such things, especially not here and now, but while he's gone it comes to Murrue's mind that, in another time and under different circumstances, they could have gone out for coffee on Valentine's Day, for the pleasure of one another's company instead of to help keep them both alert while they planned out the course of action least likely to get them and others killed.

She entertains the thought only for a moment before she puts it out of her mind. This isn't the time, and a captain can't think that way about an officer on her ship. However attractive she may find him.

Mwu has been unfailingly dependable since this all began, and Murrue is grateful for that. She has no right to wish for more.

Still, it's a shame.

-

**Author's Note:** Written as a (belated) Valentine's Day gift for Annwyd.


	13. Three Things that Never Happened

**Title:** Three Things That Never Happened to Mwu la Fllaga  
**Genre:** General / AU / Romance  
**Wordcount:** 678  
**Timeline:** AU x 3  
**Summary:** As the title says. Written for Yami no White Rain as part of an LJ meme.

* * *

There was only one defender left by the time Mwu made it to the two remaining G-weapons - cursing Raww Le Klueze and his trashed Zero and his own bad luck every step of the way - and she nearly took his head off before he managed to throw up a hand to stop her. "Hey!" he said. "Hey. Mwu la Fllaga, with the Seventh. I'm on your side!"

She was shot, bleeding a dark stain down the shoulder of her jumpsuit, and her brown eyes fixed a hard and wary look on him over her gun before she finally lowered her aim away from him. "Murrue Ramius, with Sector Two," she began. "We need to move these units-"

He saw her eyes widen and fix on something behind him, and as she brought her gun back up he whipped around to fire a few shots at the ZAFT pilot who'd climbed up onto one of the mobile suits - too late, the red-suited figure was already vanishing into the cockpit.

"Damn," he swore. There was no taking it back with just two of them. No help for it- "In," he told Murrue, and pushed her at the last G as gunfire rattled around them.

He dropped down into the cockpit behind her and reached for the controls, powering the thing up and grimacing at the awkwardness of what was clearly an only half-finished OS. The unit lurched violently as he brought it onto his feet, all but pitching Ramius across his lap.

His breath hissed between his teeth. "If this is sex, get closer," he snapped, out of patience; "otherwise get out of the way."

She was already scrambling up, wedging herself awkwardly in behind the seat as he wrestled with controls that seemed to want to fight against him rather than respond. Mwu could not think of a less ideal situation, but he'd be damned if he let ZAFT beat him now. Not for nothing did people call him the man who could make the impossible possible.

* * *

He'd barely arrived at his teaching post in California before they called him back into front-line combat, but the celebrated Hawk of Endymion was never really the same after word reached him that the _Archangel_ had gone down at JOSH-A. He destroyed a whole string of the Strike Dagger mobile suits that he was assigned, throwing himself into battle with a reckless ferocity that made him almost as dangerous to his fellow Earth Forces pilots as he was to the ZAFT units that he left strewn about in bits of wreckage behind him.

By the time the world ended at Jachin Due, the man who'd once been known for making the impossible possible was known instead as a man who didn't care if he lived or died.

* * *

"You seem restless," said Murrue.

"I guess I am," Mwu had to admit. It was months since their return to Earth - longer since the first tenuous steps toward peace had begun in the aftermath of Jachin Due, since he'd last managed to make the impossible possible and had, somehow, impossibly, lived through it - and he found he was still waiting for the restlessness to subside. A captain's commission in Orb's military did little to dispel it. He felt, almost more than he had in the aftermath of his defection at JOSH-A when at least there had been future battles to plan for, as though his strings had been cut; he _itched_ to fly, in a way that periodic training flights and the occasional test-run for Morgenroete could not satisfy.

"I don't think I'm cut out for peace," he confessed. "I just don't know what to do with myself any more."

Murrue was quiet for a while, resting an arm lightly across his shoulders as she thought. Presently she turned her face toward him to say, "Well, I can think of one thing to suggest."

He turned his head to raise his brows at her. "Oh?"

"You could marry me."

Mwu stared at her, momentarily floored, and Murrue smiled.


End file.
